Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) chief Azam Baki said other witnesses to be summoned include government employees serving in the Perak land and mines office in 2012, reported Sinar Harian.

Azam said MACC will also go through the minutes of Perak executive council meetings which touched on the change of the land’s status.

“At the moment, the investigation is at the second stage after we prosecuted a (former) land and mines officer,” he said.

Azam also denied that the release of a property company’s managing director who was previously remanded implied that the investigation had concluded.

On April 30, former Perak land and mines officer Rosli Che Mohamed, 64, pleaded not guilty at the Ipoh sessions court to cheating the Perak agricultural land board, resulting in the subdivision of Malay reserve land in 2012.

Rosli was then the deputy registrar of titles at the land office. He was charged with deceiving the Perak agricultural land board into believing that land parcels PN 174770-174772 and PT 17527-17529 in Sitiawan, Manjung, were not Malay reserve land by using a data correction form dated March 25, 2011 from the Perak land and mines director’s office.

This prompted the board to approve a land subdivision application for the ownership of 317 plots covering an area of approximately 649ha in Sitiawan, Manjung, to Nadi Agrobusiness Sdn Bhd, a decision the board alleges it would not have made had it known otherwise.

MACC recently detained a 44-year-old managing director of a real estate company for four days on suspicion of bribing government officials to change the Malay reserve land’s status.

Berita Harian previously reported that the company was suspected of paying bribes to government officials to change the status of the land, which was subsequently transferred to 317 individuals and non-Bumiputera companies in Sitiawan.